66 bereth the very hairs of his head. And although he may have seen so much iniquity committed in the name of the Most High, as to induce him to refuse that name a place in his system of belief, nevertheless he cannot in fact and in feeling remain "without God in the world"-in other words he cannot be actually an Atheist. If he be a man of strong feelings of justice coupled with a somewhat sombre temperament, he will see every where the footsteps of some ever-working, resistless and inexorable power, to which he may give the name of Destiny. And the decrees of this Despot, he will be ever nerving himself to bear and to defy. To him then, Fate or Necessity will be a God. If he be a man of no settled principles whatever—a mere straw on the waves of the world, then you will find him the "dark idolator of chance." He will court the caprices of a Being who is dimly imaged to his mind under the name of Fortune, and even pray to her in his heart. Or if he be one whose kindlier affections have never been polluted by sophistry or by selfishness, then, however he may declaim against the name or against some of the imputed attributes of Jehovah, his heart will go forth in love and rise in adoration to a Mother Nature—he will worship with all his faculties and feelings a mighty and mysterious power, goodness and wisdomwhich he may choose to call the "Soul of the Universe." If his spiritual nature be cultivated, he will commune with this all-pervading, all-embracing, all-animating Soul in every place and season. To him the whisper of the winds, the moan of the billows and all the sounds of Nature, will be the audible voice-the universal air will be the breath-and the blue sky the serene countenance of a Being, whom though he may not choose to name him as men name him, his heart and soul and all that is within him, impel him irresistibly to love and reverence as the source and support of all creatures. So deeply has the Creator engraven on man's heart a sense of his being and agency—so true it is— to quote a happy illustration of the thought, that as the needle touched by the loadstone, turns, after all its deviations, tremblingly faithful to the pole-so the Soul of man touched by the Holy Spirit, turns, amidst its wildest errors, tremblingly faithful to the throne of God. 13 PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS. SUGGESTED BY THE CARTOON OF RAFFAELLE. BY ANNE C. LYNCH. GREECE! hear that joyful sound, A stranger's voice upon thy sacred hill, Whose tones shall bid the slumbering nations round, Athenians! gather there, he brings you words He brings you news of One Above Olympian Jove. One in whose light That UNKNOWN GOD of whom ye darkly dream, Behold, he bids you rise From your dark worship round that idol shrine, Lift up your souls from where in dust ye bow, But, brighter tidings still! He tells of one whose precious blood was spilt In lavish streams upon Judea's hill, A ransom for your guilt,— Who triumphed o'er the grave, and broke its chain; Who conquer'd Death and Hell, and rose again. Sages of Greece ! come near- Immortal life revealed! light for which ye Searchers for some First Cause Midst doubt and darkness, lo! he points to One That was from everlasting, that shall be To everlasting still, eternally. Ye followers of him Who deemed his soul a spark of Deity! Your fancies fade, your master's dreams grow dim To this reality. Stoic! unbend that brow, drink in that sound! Greece! though thy sculptured walls Have with thy triumphs and thy glories rung, Immortal poets sung,—— No sounds like these have rent your startled air, They open realms of light and bid you enter there. ON THE REMOVAL OF THE REMAINS OF WASHINGTON. BY THE HON. TRISTAM BURGES. On the 13th of February, 1832, a Resolution was introduced into the House of Representatives, to remove the remains of Washington from Virginia, and to place them in a vault under the centre of the Capitol. IF I look back towards the beginning of life, memory is in a moment filled with bright and joyous recollections of that time, when even in the distant and humble neighborhood of my birth, the lessons of youth, and of childhood, when the very songs of the cradle were the deeds, the glory, the praises of Washington. Think you, these teachings have ceased in the land; that these feelings are dead in our country ? Cannot we, who regard the buried remains of the great Father of our Country, as the earthly remains of no other mortal man are regarded; cannot we, awed and subdued with gratitude, with more than filial piety; cannot we approach the hallowed repository, and roll back the stone from the door of the sepulchre, without the guilt of sacrilege? Cannot his country remove the remains of this, its great Founder; and carry them in solemn procession, |
